With job growth sluggish, internships, seasonal jobs and even volunteering may be the best way to find a permanent place in the workforce, career counselors and outplacement specialists say.

First, some numbers.

Job creation in the Capital Region was unchanged in February from year-earlier levels. While the private sector gained 1,300 jobs, public employment declined by the same amount.

The numbers in January were even worse: 1,700 jobs had been lost over the previous year.

Nationally, the number of long-term unemployed — those without a job for 27 weeks or more — last month equaled 37 percent of all unemployed, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

And a new study by economists at Princeton University, covering 2008 to 2012, found that just 11 percent of those long-term unemployed will ever find a job.

They're more likely to give up looking, said Alan Krueger, one of the study's authors and a former chief economic adviser to President Obama.

"People know if they're out of work six months or more, a company won't look at them," said Tom McKenna, managing partner of outplacement firm McKenna & Associates — OI Partners in Albany. "They ask what's wrong with them."

McKenna's advice to those nearing that six-month mark is to take a temporary job.

Working has its benefits beyond the monetary return.

"It gives you the emotional and psychological support you need," said Tom Denham, a long-time area career counselor in private practice at Careers in Transition LLC. "You're out meeting people, you network."

Alec Courtney, president of Tri-City Manpower, a staffing firm in Albany, echoes those comments.

"There's an awful lot of employment activity that never makes Monster or capitalareahelpwanted.com," he said, referring to two online job services. Temporary work "is a way to plug into a whole extra network."

The tight job market has also had an impact on students.

For those in college, temporary work, in the form of internships, give them a foot in the door.

When Denham wrote his doctoral dissertation on internships back in the 1980s, he said just 1 to 2 percent of college students had them.

"Now, three-quarters do," Denham, a former career counselor at Siena College, said.

Siena's 11th annual career fair, held last Tuesday, focused as much on internships and graduate school as it did on careers.

Several students said it was likely the company they interned with would be the company that eventually hires them.

In addition to filling in blanks on their resumes, temporary jobs can also provide workers with new skills.

Courtney of Manpower says students coming out of college can make temporary work "a job search strategy.

"They do get exposed to different kinds of projects, and learn new software applications," he said. A temporary workers may come out of the job knowing how to run a bidding process or handle medical correspondence, Manpower's Courtney added.

But while employees seek to move from temporary to full-time work, McKenna sees more employers heading in the opposite direction.

A major reason is economic: Firms like his need to keep costs down to compete for projects, and the slack in the labor market makes it easier to find workers.

"I used to have six people. I have two now," he said. "When I have a big project, I'll hire people who are 1099s (independent contractors)... I was amazed at the quality of people I can hire on a part-time basis."

The trend has extended to colleges and universities, which pay adjunct professors "a tenth" of a full professor's salary, McKenna said.

For temp workers, the trend has obvious drawbacks: a lack of benefits like health insurance, paid sick leave and vacation, as well as being unable to financially commit long-term to a mortgage or even car payments.

But many members of the millennial generation, he said, are repaying employers in kind.

"The rules have changed," he said. "It's no longer a negative to move around every year or two."